“The best surveys are ones that reveal unexpected findings or examine issues that have not yet been widely covered,” says Chain Store Age senior editor Dan Berthaiume.
You may know Bob Safian as the former editor of Fast Company. As good a job as that was, Bob may be on to something even bigger and better…
If you’re younger than 43 years old, Steve Lohr was reporting for the New York Times before you were born. Imagine all the stories he has written… the interviews he has conducted… and all the pitches he has seen.
Unlike most reporters you’ll meet, TechCrunch freelancer Amanda Silberling is no introvert. She truly wants you to understand what she does and why.
Cade Metz is consistent. We interviewed him in 2008, 2012 and 2015. Each time he has carried the same message: though he reports on tech, it’s always about the people. This week we checked in with Cade to discuss Genius Makers, his new book about “the mavericks who brought AI to Google, Facebook and the world.” Again with the people!
Forbes senior editor Alex Konrad gave us a metric ton of insight this month — one article just wasn’t enough. So this week we plumb the notebook of SWMS contributor Rhiannon Pacheco, who interviewed Alex earlier this month, and present the rest of Alex’s thoughtful and heartfelt advice for PR pros looking to win his attention.
Veteran IT freelancer Mike Vizard discusses his views of virtual events, whether he covers enterprise startups, and shares how he thinks of “news” these days. Interview was conducted July 2020.
Sean Michael Kerner is a B2B tech reporter, and according to his LinkedIn profile, is an “Internet consultant, a strategy and developer/writer and sometimes entrepreneur.” While Sean no longer writes for eWeek, he recently picked up freelance work at Business Insider and still writes for Enterprise Networking Planet, eSecurity Planet, ServerWatch and ITPro Today.
How do you land coverage in WSJ Journal Reports? Pitch the beat reporters. “It’s hard to target these reports,” says senior editor Larry Rout. He explains that the best stories come from those with the domain expertise, be it in healthcare, energy or wealth management.
The New York Times has been around since 1851. According to SimilarWeb, the NYT gets 400 million unique visits each month from more than 250 countries. Naturally, PR pros want to plug into this prestige and power — which is why many NYT editors often suspect your motives when you approach them.
YOUR ACCOUNT
FRIDGE NOTES
This is majorly tl;dr, but recent research from FT Strategies and Reuters empirically uncovers every trend there is, when it comes to the health of the media business. In short, “the media” is barely breakeven, here and around the world. AI search may prove devastating.
The WSJ this week launched CEO Brief, a newsletter designed to inform readers, and to attract new members to the WSJ Leadership Institute. This organization is already a Dow Jones profit center, and a great example of how Tier 1 can lessen dependence on advertising. Former Fortune CEO Alan Murray runs the institute and is the nominal editor of CEO Brief — and promises to read every bit of reader mail — though he has delegated the writing of the newsletter to subordinates in the early going.
Fast Company’s Lydia Dishman has joined (SWMS subscriber) Method Communications as VP of content strategy. Lydia joins an already strong content team, which includes former NY Times reporter Tim Race and B2B tech edit vet John Foley.
“I’m leaving to build something new,” Alex posted on X today. He spent 12 years at Forbes as a reporter and a builder of databases and lists. It’s time he gets to keep the money.
Axios reported on Jan. 24 that private equity firm Blackstone will sell IDG/Foundry, publishers of InfoWorld, Computerworld and Network World (and owners of IDC) to another private equity firm called Regent, which bought streaming video channel Cheddar in 2023. Remains to be seen how the ownership change will affect IDG’s venerable IT titles, but it’s unlikely their budgets will go up.
Unionized writers have secured new protections governing the use of generative AI in member newsrooms, reports the Hollywood Reporter. The union — Writers Guild of America, East — represents Fast Company, Wired and many other prominent titles. The union won agreement that publications “will not lay off current staff employees due to the use of generative AI,” and also that “advance notice [must be given] if the company plans to make the use of generative AI systems a requirement of [editors’] jobs.”
